Yes, because, one, the ability of the Principal Defender to engage in that kind of consultation was limited in the budget. Secondly, the issue of the -- of what fees counsel could be entitled to was dealt with in the budget. And other issues that affect the facilitation of the case in terms of investigation were also affected by the budget whereby there appeared to be a mandate from the Management Committee that the budget proposed for the Defence was just too high and therefore should be cut, and various aspects of this budget were drastically cut.

Now, one of the issues that this budget intended to address was the need to attract reasonable legal expertise for the Taylor trial, and again all we hear about is comparisons of this case to cases that have happened in other places in relation to the amount of money that is necessary. And, of course, if we go and extrapolate from those examples, we find that this case stands uniquely alone, only to be compared to possibly the Milosevic case in terms of the budgetary arrangements that are necessary for an effective defence.

So, yes, your Honour, budgetary constraints have affected this right from when the problem arose, and that the former counsel had to engage in banter between Registry and counsel as to what amount is necessary; or "Maybe if you do away with the arbitration clause and the legal services contract, we'll give you an extra 5,000. Is that going to be enough?" There has been that problem of budget really affecting the ability to have a formidable team.

Your Honour, I think it is not a matter of asking for the skies. It is a matter of asking for adequate resources. From our point of view, what we have proposed are adequate resources have almost always been rejected from the point of view of a limited budget.